By Deke Rivers
LUCK (2022)
An animated film with a difference! Having lived eighteen years in foster care without being adopted, the spirited Sam (voiced by Eva Noblezada) ventures out on her own for the first time in her life. Unfortunately for Sam, things never quite work out for her, with disaster and dismay always around the corner. It is when the hapless Sam comes into temporary possession of a lucky penny, one belonging to an otherworldly jet-black cat named Bob (Simon Pegg), does her fortune begin to shift. Wanting to extend this good luck to her young friend Hazel (Adelynn Spoon), allowing her to nab a “Forever Family”, Sam travels via a magical portal to The Land Of Luck. It is in this fantastical metropolis where Sam must overcome her ill-fatedness.
LUCKY (2017)
Lucky (Harry Dean Stanton) is a cantankerous 90-year-old living alone in a small New Mexican town. He spends his days watching game shows, doing crosswords and visiting the local diner and bar, where he waxes existential with his friend Howard (David Lynch), the bar’s owner Elaine (Beth Grant) and her boyfriend Paulie (James Darren)…and that’s pretty much it. However, actor John Carroll Lynch’s debut directorial effort doesn’t feel as scattershot as the plotless nature of the story may suggest, anchored as it is by a phenomenal final performance by the great Harry Dean Stanton.
LOGAN LUCKY (2017)
In this heist flick from Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s 11), the mastermind is former miner Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum), his football career killed by a bad knee, who needs the cash to keep seeing his daughter, who’s in the custody of his estranged wife (Katie Holmes). His brother, Clyde (Adam Driver), tends bar with his one good arm, having lost the left in Iraq. Sister Melly (Riley Keough), works in a downmarket beauty salon. They’re all underachievers, labouring under what Clyde thinks is a family curse – they’re all, as the title says, “Logan lucky”. But when this motely crew cook up a risky, bizarre plan to rob NASCAR, their luck begins to change. Getting yourself into a syndicate can reap major rewards, as a visit to https://syndicateaus.com/ proves.
LUCKY CHAN-SIL (2020)
Writer/director Kim Cho-hee digs deep into the human condition with Lucky Chan-Sil to unearth resonant gold. The central performance of Gang Mal-geum as the titular Chan-sil, a film producer who finds herself without work after her close directorial collaborator suddenly dies, is one bursting with transitional malaise. The fear that all that time she spent devoted to her craft, rather than engaging with the other experiences life has to offer like love and family, has her in a fit of stasis that is heart-rending to see. And with auteur theory subtly playing into the reason why she is jobless in the first place, she serves as an alternative viewpoint of the industry. Lucky Chan-Sil serves as an interesting examination of the film industry and the creatives that dwell within it.
LUCKY GRANDMA (2020)
Recently widowed, Grandma Wong (the excellent Tsai Chin) is pushing 80 and determined to live life as an independent woman, despite the concern of her family. After receiving an exciting prediction from her local fortune teller, Grandma Wong makes a beeline for the casino to cash in on her forecasted fortune. She lands on the wrong side of luck – or does she? Suddenly, she attracts the focus of local Red Dragon gangsters. She seeks protection from members of a rival gang named Zhongliang, and purchases the services of a discount bodyguard; Big Pong (an endearing performance from the hulking Taiwanese actor Hsiao-Yuan Ha). Invariably, Grandma Wong finds herself in the middle of a Chinatown gang war, leading to a delightful story of chance.
